Illinois priest assembles elaborate Christmas town

SHELBYVILLE, Ill. — While it takes a village to raise a child, it turns out you need the good offices of a priest to raise a knockout Christmas village.

Village, however, is perhaps the last word in understatement. Head on over to the "gathering space" fronting the sanctuary in Shelbyville's Immaculate Conception Catholic Church and feast your eyes on the festive metropolis created by the Rev. Don Wolford and friends. Set aside a few hours, you'll need it.

The full assembly of tiny buildings, vehicles and people is supported by a series of hidden tables covered with meticulously applied snowy decoration to create the rolling hills and valleys of a mythical landscape. Most of the Christmas-themed buildings are the Department 56 brand, and there more than 150 of them. One notable exception is the Decatur Transfer House, a lighted model version created by the late Decatur artist Steve Wetherholt.

"Many of my buildings have been gifts to me," said Wolford, 63, who also looks after the churches of St. Francis De Sales in Moweaqua and St. Mary's in Assumption. "There are a lot of memories here."

And a lot of frozen motion, too. Rather than just set the buildings out in lines, Wolford and his village assembly elves from Decatur — longtime friend Mark Doyle assisted by detail-oriented helper Marlene Smith — go in for storytelling. There are streets and neighborhoods, and stuff going on amid the labyrinthine layout that measures some 20 by 22 feet and rises to a height of 6 feet.

"Look, there's a car wreck down there," says Wolford, indicating a flipped over mini car surrounded by a little throng of people that happens to include a TV news crew. The "if it bleeds, it leads" school of journalism has not escaped Christmas Town and just up the hill we can see their miniature TV station complete with flashing light atop a tall antenna.

"When it gets late at night we get kind of slap-happy," explains Wolford of the four day process to create his Christmas fantasy land. "And things just happen, like the car accident. And then we start telling stories about the people who live in the houses and what is going on down there."

And what isn't going on down there? There is a glass mirror lake, a working tiny waterfall, dozens of shops, an airport, a mansion atop a hill being zipped down by laughing sledders, vehicle service stations, a courthouse that looks surprisingly like the one in Shelbyville and a working train. Unfortunately, it's been temporarily derailed (really) and is awaiting repair by the teenage engineer who set up the track, Michael Beardsley, a member of the Immaculate Conception congregation.

Some steel girders loaded on one of the train cars are stamped "Bethlehem" as in "Bethlehem Steel", a rather nice touch.

Everything everywhere is lit by tiny Christmas trees, working street lights and lights inside the buildings themselves. "Every year we mix it all up and try to make it a little different," explains Doyle, the chief construction elf who has been helping out for 20 years. "When Father was pastor of St. Patrick's Church in Decatur years ago the collection was small enough we could set it up in the dining room. It's just expanded and expanded."

At night it all becomes a source of wonder to children's wide eyes who look upon it at street level and are drawn into a glowing world of imagination with the celebration of the Christian story running through it like high voltage cable. Wolford sees his village as a light-up "Gloria in excelsis Deo", inviting kids and the young at heart to come on in and experience a little festive magic generated by the reason for the season.

And it gets better: Wolford is not bound by the pesky laws of man in his Land of Yule and can ride a sleigh and reindeer through such annoying Constitutional stipulations like the separation of church and state. Look carefully at his version of the Shelby County Courthouse and you will see a crèche scene set up on the grounds.

"I do that because I can," he says with a smile. "It's my town."

The whole magnificent village display, up in time for Thanksgiving, will remain in place until Feb. 2 because the Christmas gospel, according to Wolford, says, "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing." When it does finally get taken down and painstakingly packed away in boxes, the Immaculate Conception church — clearly built with a very expansive view of the need to accommodate man's failings — provides ample storage.

"I store it all in the confessional," explains Wolford. "It happens to be a very large room in this church, bigger than it needs to be."